Why the Drum Reviews Your Year Better Than Bullet Points Do

It’s that time of year again.

You know the drill: grab your journal, make yourself a cup of tea, and write down your reflections on 2025.

What went well?
What didn’t?
What did you learn?
What are you grateful for?
What will you do differently in 2026?

And if you’re like most self-aware women, you’ll fill pages with thoughtful, articulate insights about your year.

You’ll make beautiful lists. You’ll identify patterns. You’ll set intentions for next year that sound really, really good.

Then you’ll close the journal, return to your life, and somehow… nothing actually shifts.

You’re trying to access body-held wisdom through the thinking mind.

And your thinking mind is the last place that knows what this year was really about.

Your Nervous System Has Been Keeping The Score

While you were managing 2025, your body was tracking everything:

• Every transition that rattled your sense of identity
• Every loss you tried to process while still showing up for everyone
• Every moment of overwhelm you pushed through because you had to
• Every boundary you crossed or failed to hold
• Every time you felt joy and second-guessed it
• Every rage you swallowed
• Every grief you postponed

Your nervous system has a detailed record of this year. But it doesn’t speak in bullet points.

It speaks in:

• Tension patterns in your shoulders and jaw
• The way your breath shallows when you think about certain topics
• The exhaustion that sleep doesn’t touch
• The restlessness that has nowhere to go
• The numbness that protects you from feeling too much

Journalling exercises asks your thinking mind to report on what your body experienced.

It’s like asking someone who watched a movie through a window to write the review. They saw some things. They missed the audio. They have theories. But they didn’t experience it.

Your body experienced 2025. Your mind just watched.

Why Cognitive Reflection Keeps You Safe (And Stuck)

The thinking mind is brilliant at many things:

• Making sense of complexity
• Identifying patterns
• Planning and strategizing
• Sounding articulate and insightful

But it’s also brilliant at:

• Keeping you comfortable
• Avoiding what’s actually true
• Controlling the narrative
• Protecting you from feelings you’re not ready to feel

When you sit down with your journal and ask “what did 2025 teach me?”, your thinking mind immediately curates the answer.

It gives you the lessons you’re READY to hear.
The ones that make sense.
The ones that don’t threaten your self-concept.
The ones that feel manageable.

It won’t tell you:

• The grief you’re still not acknowledging
• The rage that’s calcified into resentment
• The pattern you keep repeating because facing it would mean changing everything
• The gift that’s sitting right in front of you that you can’t see because it doesn’t match your story

Your thinking mind loves you. It’s trying to keep you safe. But safety does not equal truth.

What Happens When You Bypass the Thinking Mind

This is where drumming becomes revolutionary.

When you drum, or when you listen to drumming, especially in a guided journey with intention, something neurologically fascinating happens:

Your brainwaves shift from beta (normal waking consciousness) to alpha and/or theta (meditative/trance state).

Alpha and theta are where:

• The analytical mind quiets
• The body’s wisdom becomes accessible
• Symbols and images emerge instead of words
• Truth that’s been stored somatically can surface
• You access knowing that thinking can’t reach

It’s the same state you’re in during REM sleep, deep meditation, or moments of creative flow.

In this altered state, your body can finally TELL you what 2025 was about.

Not what you think it should have been about.
Not the sanitized version.
Not the narrative that makes sense.

The actual, embodied, messy, often surprising truth.

Why This Matters for How You Move Forward

The thing is about unacknowledged truth: It doesn’t go away just because you wrote a different story in your journal.

It stays in your body:

• As tension
• As exhaustion
• As patterns you can’t quite break
• As vague dissatisfaction with your life
• As a sense that something’s missing but you can’t name what

And then you carry all of that into 2026.

You set beautiful intentions based on the curated story.
You make plans based on what you THINK happened.
You commit to changes that don’t address what’s actually asking to shift.

And then you wonder why nothing actually changes.

The body truth you bypassed? It’s still running the show.

The Neuroscience of Why This Works

Let me put on my PhD hat for a moment.

The thinking mind lives primarily in the prefrontal cortex : planning, analysing, narrating.

Body wisdom lives in:

• The limbic system (emotions, memory)
• The brain stem (survival responses, core regulation)
• The vagus nerve (gut feelings, somatic knowing)

These systems don’t speak English.

They don’t respond to “tell me what you learned this year.”

But they DO respond to:

• Rhythm (the drum)
• Repetition (the steady beat)
• Resonance (vibration in the body)
• Trance states (alpha and theta brainwaves)
• Symbolic language (images, metaphors, sensations)

When you drum with intention, you’re literally creating the neurological conditions for non-verbal knowing to surface.

You’re giving your body permission to speak in its own language.

Your body has been waiting to tell you things your mind wasn’t ready to hear.

This Isn’t About Drumming Being “Better” Than Journaling

Both have value. Both are powerful. Both have their place.

But they serve different purposes:

Journaling is phenomenal for:

• Processing thoughts and making meaning
• Tracking patterns over time
• Articulating insights once you’ve HAD them
• Planning and strategising
• Integration work

Drumming is phenomenal for:

• ACCESSING what needs to be known
• Bypassing the defensive mind
• Letting the body speak
• Receiving insight rather than generating it
• Dropping into truth that thinking obscures

The most powerful practice? Use both.

Drum to ACCESS the truth. Journal to INTEGRATE what came through.

Not the other way around.

How to Actually Do This

If you’re reading this thinking “okay, I want to try this, but I don’t know how” – start simple.

You don’t need to be a “drummer.”
You don’t need a fancy drum.
You don’t need to know what you’re doing.

Here’s a basic practice:

1. Set an intention: “Show me what 2025 was really about” or “What gift am I meant to receive from this year?”
   
2. Find a rhythm: Just a steady beat. Doesn’t have to be complex. Think heartbeat.
   
3. Drum for 5-10 minutes: Keep the rhythm going. Close your eyes. Let yourself drop in.
   
4. Notice what comes: Images, sensations, memories, emotions, knowing. Don’t judge it. Just notice.
   
5. Journal afterward: Not to make sense of it. Just to capture what came through.
   

That’s it.

The sophistication isn’t in the technique.  It’s in the willingness to let your body speak.

Or Let Me Guide You

This is exactly why I’m offering a free drum journey workshop next week.

Not because I think you need another thing to do. But because I KNOW that bullet-point reflection isn’t touching what 2025 actually asked of you.

(and frankly because I find drumming a whole lot more appealing and fun than sitting down to write)

We’ll do two guided drum journeys together:

Journey 1: The Spiral – Walking back through 2025 with a guide who shows you what actually happened (not what you think happened). You’ll receive a gift or lesson.

Journey 2: Meeting Your Future Self – Traveling forward to December 2026 to meet the transformed version of you. She’ll show you what you need to know right now.

Between journeys: journaling, sharing, and space to actually FEEL what this year was about.

No drum required. Just curiosity and willingness.

Not because I’m promising magic. But because your body already knows what you need to know.

The drum just helps you hear it.

The Invitation

What if 2025 has a gift for you that you can’t see yet?

What if there’s wisdom in your body that your thinking mind keeps bypassing?

What if the reason you feel stuck isn’t because you haven’t reflected ENOUGH, but because you’ve been reflecting in the wrong language?

Your body knows.

Put down the journal.
Pick up the drum.
Let it speak.

Join my FREE workshop Review Your Year, Reclaim Your Vision: A Free Drum Journey Workshop on Wednesday the 17th of December 2025. No experience necessary. 

Tell me: What did your journal tell you about 2025? And what is your body trying to tell you that you haven’t been able to hear yet?

They took our drums
and called it civilisation.

Told us to be quiet,
to speak when spoken to,
to lower our voices,
to stop making a fuss.

They took our drums
and replaced them with
clocks and beeping phones
and metrics that measure
everything except
the beating of our hearts.

They took our drums
because they knew:
a woman with a drum
cannot be tamed.

We used to drum to women into labour,
our rhythms matching contractions,
our beats saying
you are not alone
your body knows

We used to drum the dying home,
steady beats that said
it’s safe to let go
we are here
you are held.

We used to drum for the moon,
for the harvest,
for the grief that had no words,
for the joy that was too big
to fit inside our chests

The drum was our medicine.
Our technology.
Our prayer.

Then they took them.

Banned them first,
when they wanted control.
They called our drumming witchcraft.
Burned the women who wouldn’t stop.

They removed rhythm from birth
and replaced it with
sterile rooms and
beeping machines and
women flat on their backs
told to push
on someone else’s schedule.

Made us forget
that our hands
once knew how to call forth
the soul

And here’s what they knew
that we forgot:

Drumming drops you
out of your thinking mind
into your body,
into that place where
you cannot be sold to
or marketed at
or convinced
that you are not enough.

Drumming connects you to
rage (call it hysteria, lock her up)
intuition (call it irrational, dismiss her)
power (call it threatening, silence her)
boundaries (call it difficult, punish her).

Drumming makes you
uncontrollable

And when women drum together?

When our hearts synchronise
and our brains entrain
and we remember
bone-deep remember
that we are not alone?

That’s when the systems shake.

Because isolated women
compete.
compare.
comply.

But women in sync?
Women whose heartbeats match?
Women who remember
what they are capable of
when they move together?

Those women
cannot be controlled.

So they told you:
you’re not musical
you can’t keep a beat
you need training
you need permission
you need to be
quieter
smaller
less.

They told you drumming is:
New age nonsense
Hippy bullshit
Something only men do
  

They told you this
because your drum
is dangerous.

But here’s what I know:

Your hands remember.

Even if your mind forgot,
even if you think you have no rhythm,
even if you’ve never touched a drum

your hands remember.

Your grandmother’s hands.
Your great-great-great-grandmother’s hands.
The hands of every woman
who came before you,
drumming in the dark,
drumming in the light,
drumming the world
into being.

So pick up your drum.

Pick it up and know
that every beat says:
I will not be silenced.

Every rhythm claims:
I take up space.

Every pulse declares:
I am here,
I am connected,
I am powerful,
and I am done
asking for permission.

They took our drums
thinking they could keep us quiet.

But the drum lives
in our blood,
in our heart,
in the pulse
that moves through
every woman
who has ever lived.

They can take the drum
from our hands.

But they cannot take
the drum
from our bones.

So drum, sister.

Drum like your grandmothers are listening

Drum like your grand-daughters are watching

Drum like the revolution depends on it

Drum until you remember
who you were
before they taught you
to be small.

Drum until the ground
shakes
with the sound
of women
remembering.

They took our drums.
We’re taking them back.

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to think your way into calm? The more we try to stop the mind from spinning, the louder it seems to get. The drum offers a different path, one that bypasses the busy mind and leads you straight into stillness.

Every one of us carries within a deep well of wisdom, shaped by our unique histories, experiences, and bodies. While teachers and mentors can guide us towards possibilities we may not yet see, true transformation begins when we are supported in accessing our own inner knowing.

There are many doorways to this inner wisdom: journaling, creative expression, meditation, body awareness, mindful movement, being in nature. All of these practices share one thing : they bring us back to the present moment. They quiet the mind’s noise so we can hear the whispers of intuition and connect to the body’s intelligence.

I’ve explored many of these doorways myself : daily walks in nature, year-round wild swimming (even with water near freezing cold), 5Rhythms dancing, doodle journaling. Each of them opens something valuable. But none have taken me as deep as the drum. As a woman with ADHD, my brain usually has too many tabs open, and nothing calms my brain as fast as drumming does.

Drumming feels different. It asks for no words, no technique, no analysis — only presence. With every beat, the mind stills and the body listens. The drum entrains brainwaves, gently shifting consciousness, much like breath or meditation — but faster, more effortlessly. It grounds us through movement and vibration, making it easier to stay in the now.

Why does the drum reach us so deeply?  Here are ten ways drumming slows your brain down and opens the door to inner peace and wisdom:

1. Brainwave Entrainment – Repetitive rhythm synchronises brainwaves from gamma and beta into slower alpha and theta states, the frequencies linked to meditation and dreaming.
   
2. Automatic Presence – The steady beat naturally anchors you in the now. You don’t have to force mindfulness; it happens.
   
3. Physical Grounding – The vibration and movement of your hands on the drum connect you to your body, shifting focus from thinking to feeling.
   
4. Heartbeat Resonance – The drum mirrors the rhythm of the heart, signalling safety and relaxation to the nervous system.
   
5. Stress Release – Hitting the drum provides an outlet for built-up tension and emotion, literally shaking stress out of the body.
   
6. Non-Verbal Processing – Sound and rhythm move what words can’t. Drumming lets emotions and insights flow without overthinking.
   
7. Right-Brain Activation – The rhythmic, creative side of the brain awakens, bringing intuition, imagination, and new perspectives online.
   
8. Community Regulation – When drumming with others, your nervous systems sync through rhythm, creating calm and connection.
   
9. Ancient Memory – The drum speaks to something deep and timeless within us — a wisdom older than language or logic.
   
10. Playfulness and Joy – The simple act of play lightens the mind. Joy is one of the fastest ways to calm an overactive brain.
    

Drumming isn’t about performance or skill. It’s about rhythm as medicine — a way to return to yourself, to peace, and to the wisdom that was always there.

I’d love to hear from you: Have you ever used drumming to calm your mind and access your own wisdom?

Share your experience in the comments, even a few words about how it felt, or what you noticed. Let’s start a conversation about the many ways rhythm can guide us back to presence, peace, and insight.

The first time I held a drum, I felt something ancient in my body. A recognition. Something that said: you know this.

And I did, or rather, my body did. My hands knew the rhythm before my mind. My heart knew this was medicine before I had language for why.

This was so strong that it led me to acquire my own drum soon after. Drumming grew in my work and life, leading to today: I drum daily on my own, weekly with two other women, monthly in my drum circle, and every 6 weeks in the wheel of the year ceremony (and many other times in between). It has taken such an important role in my life, my path and my growth that I have written a book about it, and that I’m actively working to bring more women to the drum 

But what I didn’t know then was that my drum was dangerous. That the act of picking it up was an act of rebellion. That by drumming, I was reclaiming something that had been deliberately taken from women for centuries.

The patriarchy didn’t silence our drums by accident.

“The many women I have drummed for during pregnancies, birth and postpartum, during difficult life transitions, loss, trauma, grief, illness, accidents, changes of circumstances, end of relationships and more, have told me that the drum spoke to something deep within them, something they recognised: a remembering. They spoke of feeling like they were inside of a temple, of feeling their ancestors around them, of being reminded of their strength, of receiving powerful messages of guidance from within, including messages from goddesses and the divine feminine.” Sophie Messager

The Drums That Went Quiet

For thousands of years, women drummed.

We drummed women through birth, our rhythms matching the contractions, guiding them into altered states where their bodies knew exactly what to do. We drummed for the dying, easing their passage with beats that said you are not alone. We drummed for healing, for ceremony, for grief, for celebration, for the turning of seasons and the marking of life’s thresholds.

The drum was our medicine. Our connection to the sacred and to each other.

Then the drums went quiet.

In matriarchal societies, priestresses of the goddess used the drum to enter alerted states and communicate with the spirit world. The rise of patriarchy saw spiritual roles move to men, and with this, objects of power like the drum were removed. When the church consolidated its power throughout Europe, it called drumming witchcraft and heathenism. When colonisers wanted to control indigenous peoples, they banned the practice of traditional religions and drumming. When birth moved from home to hospital, natural rhythms were replaced with machines and protocols.

This wasn’t cultural evolution. This was systematic suppression.

Because those in power understood something crucial: women with drums are dangerous.

“As we drum, we don’t just think differently – we experience the world differently. This altered state of being opens doorways to new perspectives, allowing us to imagine and embody alternatives to the limiting narratives that have been unconsciously programmed into us. In essence, drumming doesn’t just challenge the system – it transports us beyond it, offering an experience of what true autonomy and connection feel like.” Sophie Messager

Why Your Drum Threatens the System

The patriarchy has a vested interest in keeping you in your head.

Overthinking. Analyzing. Doubting yourself. Seeking external validation. Second-guessing your intuition. Being “reasonable.” Staying small. Questioning whether you’re “too much” or “too loud” or “too intense”.

When you’re trapped in mental loops, comparing yourself to others, wondering if you’re good enough, waiting for permission, you’re manageable. Controllable. Easy to market to, easy to exploit, easy to keep in line.

But drumming short-circuits all of that.

Within minutes of drumming, your brainwaves shift from beta (the thinking, analysing state) to alpha and theta (embodied, intuitive, present). You literally cannot overthink while drumming. Your thinking mind has to surrender to rhythm, to body, to the present moment.

And in that space, that drumming space where thinking stops and being begins, you access something the patriarchy desperately doesn’t want you to find:

Your own knowing.

The Wisdom They Don’t Want You to Access

Your body holds truths that the systems of power have spent centuries trying to make you forget:

Your intuition. That deep, bone-level knowing that they dismiss as “irrational” or “emotional.” The knowing that tells you when something is wrong, when someone is lying, when you need to leave, when you need to stay. Drumming connects you directly to this wisdom.

Your rage. The righteous anger at injustice, at being diminished, at having your voice taken, at watching other women suffer. You’ve been taught that anger makes you “difficult” or “hysterical.” But your rage is information. It’s power. And drumming lets it move through you instead of hurting you.

Your power. Not power over others, but power as life force, as creative energy, as sovereignty over your own body and choices. The power to take up space, to be heard, to say no. Drumming reconnects you to the power that you’ve been taught to fear in yourself.

Your boundaries. The “no” you’re supposed to soften, explain, apologise for. The needs you’re taught to suppress. The space you’re told not to take. The fawning. Drumming teaches your nervous system that you can be loud, take up space, make demands on the world, and survive.

This is why they took our drums. Because women who are connected to their intuition, their rage, their power, and their boundaries cannot be controlled.

“One of the most powerful aspects of drumming and the reason people have done it since the beginning of being human is that it changes people’s consciousness. Through rhythmic repetition of ritual sounds, the body, the brain and the nervous system are energized and transformed.” Layne Redmond

The Threat of Women in Circle

But there’s something even more dangerous than a woman with a drum.

It’s a group of women drumming together.

The patriarchy’s greatest tool is isolation. Keep women separate. Keep them competing with each other. Keep them comparing themselves. Keep them too busy, too tired, too convinced they’re alone in their struggles.

Because when women come together, when we sit in circle, when we drum with each other, something magical happens.

Our brains synchronise. Our breaths synchronise. Our rhythms entrain to each other. We remember, viscerally, that we are social animals. That we are stronger together. That we are not crazy, not alone, not too much.

We remember what power feels like when it’s shared rather than hoarded.

And we become ungovernable.

This is why women’s circles were suppressed. Why gatherings were made suspicious. Why female friendship has been trivialised as “drama” or dismissed as “just chatting.” Why we were made to believe that women are bitchy and not to be trusted.

Because synchronised women, women who trust each other, support each other, drum together, cannot be controlled by systems that require our disconnection and our compliance.

The Fear That Lives in Your Bones

I’m sure many of you feel it when you think about drumming, because I hear almost every women I speak to about drumming say this. The anxiety, that voice that whispers you’re not good enough, you’ll look foolish, you’ll be too loud, someone will be angry.

This fear isn’t yours alone. It’s ancestral.

It lives in your bones because it lived in your grandmother’s bones, and her grandmother’s before her. It’s the fear of the woman who was called a witch and lost everything. The fear of the woman whose drums were confiscated and burned. The fear of the enslaved woman who was beaten for making rhythm. 

This fear was taught to us through violence, through shaming, through punishment. And even though you may never have been directly persecuted for drumming, your body remembers. Your nervous system carries the imprint of what happened to the women who came before you.

And today? The persecution is more subtle, but it’s still there. It’s in the eye roll when you mention spiritual practices. The “that’s a bit woo-woo, isn’t it?” The suggestion that you should focus on “real” things, that you’re not being a “good girl”, that you’re being ridiculous, too much, taking up too much space, making too much noise.

It’s in the way we’ve learned to apologise before we speak. To lower our voices in meetings. To second-guess our knowing. To ask permission before we take up room. To shrink to make others comfortable.

The fear of drumming isn’t about the drum at all. It’s about the deeper terror of being seen, being heard, being powerful, and facing the consequences that powerful women have always faced. And are still facing.

But something is different now: the fear isn’t ours to carry anymore. We can acknowledge it – honour it as evidence of what our foremothers survived, and then choose differently. We can pick up the drum with trembling hands and drum anyway. Not because we’re fearless, but because we’re done letting ancient persecution dictate our present silence.

I can see it everywhere in how many women are being called back to the drum.

“The rhythmic pattern of the mother’s heartbeat is linked to feeling safe, nourished, and calm.  Rhythm is regulating. Patterned, repetitive rhythms—drumming, dancing, or swaying—are central to healing rituals across all cultures. “ Dr Bruce Perry

You Don’t Need Permission

Here’s what the patriarchy taught you about drumming (and most things):

You need to be “musical.” You need training. You need to be “good at it.” You need expensive equipment. You need a teacher’s approval. You need to earn the right.

All of this is designed to keep you doubting yourself. To keep you from starting. To keep you seeking external validation instead of trusting your own heart, your own rhythm, your own voice.

But you don’t need any of that.

You need a drum. You need five minutes. You need the willingness to make sound, to take up space, to let your hands remember what your mind forgot.

That’s it.

No one can give you permission to drum, and no one can take it away. The drum doesn’t care if you’re “musical.” Your nervous system doesn’t check your training before it responds to rhythm.

Drumming signals safety to your nervous system because this is something humans have done since times immemorial, together, to release trauma and connect with each other.

Every time you pick up a drum, you are voting with your body for a different way of being. You are saying: I claim space. I claim voice. I claim the right to be loud, to be heard, to take up sonic real estate in the world.

“This physiology (the polyvagal nervous system) is not impacted through traditional ‘talk-based’ therapies […] non-verbal therapies using rhythm, movement, entrainment are more often able to restore equilibrium. […] Many indigenous rituals employ drumming to stimulate the vagal brake”. Simon Faulkner.

Drumming as Protest

Make no mistake: your drumming is political. Every beat says: I will not be silenced.

Every time you drum, you reclaim:

• Space – refusing to stay small and quiet
• Time – prioritising your practice over productivity
• Voice – being heard, not just seen
• Body – trusting its wisdom over external authorities
• Lineage – connecting to the women who drummed before you
• Community – choosing connection over competition

This is why the establishment will try to dismiss your drumming as frivolous, as “just a hobby.” They’ll tell you it’s new age nonsense, hippy bullshit stuff. They’ll suggest you’re being “too loud” or “disturbing the peace.”

Good. Disturb the peace.

The peace you’re being asked to keep is the peace of your own oppression.

What Happens When We Remember

I think about what the world would look like if women remembered how to drum.

If we taught our daughters to pick up drums instead of dimming their voices. If we gathered in circles instead of competing for scraps. If we trusted the wisdom of our bodies instead of outsourcing our knowing to experts and algorithms.

If we let ourselves be as loud as we actually are.

The systems that profit from our doubt, our silence, our smallness would crumble. Because those systems require our compliance. They need us believing we’re not enough, that we need fixing, that we should wait for permission.

Drumming teaches the opposite. It teaches: you are enough. Your body knows. You don’t need permission. You are powerful. You are not alone.

This is remembering, not learning. Not acquiring a new skill or becoming someone different. Just remembering what they made you forget:

You are powerful. You are wise. You have a voice. You deserve to be heard.

Pick Up Your Drum

So here’s my invitation: pick up your drum.

Your ancestors are waiting. The women who drummed for birth and death and healing and ceremony – they’re waiting for you to remember. Your body is waiting to drop out of overthinking and into knowing. Your voice is waiting to be heard.

The patriarchy will tell you it’s silly, that you’re not musical, that it’s just a trend, that you should be quieter, smaller, more reasonable.

Drum anyway.

Because every woman who picks up a drum is a threat to systems that require our silence.

Every woman who drums is a reminder that we are powerful, connected, and ungovernable when we remember who we are.

Every woman who drums is reclaiming what was taken, speaking what was silenced, and becoming what they feared most:

Free.

“What we need most at this moment in time, to heal ourselves and to heal the earth, is to support women to stand in their true power. The power that resides within us, in our ability to trust ourselves and know what’s right for us, rather than abdicating knowledge and power over to the system. What we need is to support a feminine way of accessing knowledge… Drumming offers a way back in through the layers of parenting, education and societal conditioning that have eroded our self-knowing. Reclaiming this knowing is critically needed in a culture that conditions women from childhood to seek truth outside rather than within.” Sophie Messager

Join Me: Drumming as Medicine

If this stirred something in you, if you felt that ancient recognition, that feeling of you know this, I invite you to join me for Drumming as Medicine: a 4-week live online women’s circle starting October 29th.

This isn’t about becoming a drummer. It’s about reclaiming a practice that regulates your nervous system, processes stuck emotions, and reconnects you to your inner wisdom, all in just a few minutes a day.

In this circle, you’ll:

• Learn drum microdosing: a simple 5-minute daily practice that creates real shifts
• Experience guided drumming journeys in community
• Move through resistance with support (not alone)
• Build a sustainable practice with accountability
• Connect with women who understand

What’s included:

• 4 live weekly circle calls on Zoom (Wednesdays 4pm GMT)
• Lifetime access to all recordings and extra course materials in my online course platform
• Private Facebook community for ongoing support
• Drum microdosing practice guide
• Exclusive drum journeys

We start on Wednesday the 29th of October and the course costs £195

You don’t need to be musical. You just need to be willing to remember.

[Register for Drumming as Medicine]

The drum is calling. Your sisters are waiting. Let’s reclaim our power together.

“Imagine a practice that calms the nervous system, soothes body and mind, deepens connection and empowerment – that’s drumming.” – Jane Hardwicke Collings

The Permission You’ve Been Waiting For

Since sharing my research on women and drumming and publishing The Beat of Your Own Drum, I’ve heard the same thing over and over from women everywhere – podcast hosts, conference attendees, random conversations in the street:

“I’ve tried drumming, but I’m not very good.” “I have a drum but don’t dare play it.” “I feel like an impostor.” “I don’t have enough rhythm.” “I’m too embarrassed.” “I don’t know where to start.”

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. I used to feel exactly the same way. Now, drumming is as natural to me as breathing, and I want to help you get there too.

Why You Think You’re “Not Good Enough”

The biggest block to starting a drumming practice isn’t lack of ability – it’s believing you need permission or training to make noise.

For most of human history, music-making, dancing, and singing were communal activities, integral to daily life. Nobody questioned whether they were “good enough” to participate. From African drum circles to Native American powwows, from European folk dances to Asian temple chants, music belonged to everyone.

The discomfort we experience today is recent – the result of a society that professionalised creative expression. We’ve moved from a culture of participation to one of performance and perfectionism, where fear of judgement overshadows the joy of creation.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: for centuries, drumming belonged to women – until it was systematically stripped away along with our spiritual authority and leadership.

It’s time we took it back.

A Solution for Modern Overwhelm

Exhausted from overthinking everything? Seeking advice, reading books, trying to think your way to clarity while your mind spins endlessly?

Drumming bypasses mental chatter. Within minutes, the rhythm shifts your brainwaves, drops you into your body, and opens a channel to inner wisdom that words can’t reach.

It’s not about becoming “good at drumming.” It’s about remembering a language your body already speaks.

How to Start (It’s Simpler Than You Think)

There is no “right” way to drum. All you need is a drum (a frame drum with a beater is easiest, but any drum works) and a willingness to play intuitively.

Commit to just 5 minutes a day with intention, and you’ll see shifts within weeks. Earlier this year, I led women through a 4-week “drum microdosing” practice – 5 minutes of intuitive drumming daily. Every participant reported 50-70% improvement in the wellbeing aspect they’d chosen to focus on.

Ready to Begin?

Join my free workshop: “Start Drumming – A Workshop for Women’s Wellbeing & Inner Wisdom” on 15th October.

You’ll discover:

• Why drumming was deliberately removed from women’s hands (and why reclaiming it matters now)
• How rhythm bypasses mental chatter and connects you to inner wisdom
• The science proving drumming reduces stress and shifts consciousness
• Simple ways to start a practice – even if you think you’re “not musical”
• How 5 minutes daily can transform your relationship with yourself

No drum required. No sense of rhythm required. Just curiosity and willingness to explore something ancient our culture forgot.

[REGISTER HERE]

Can’t make the workshop?

Start your drumming journey now:

• Read: How to Choose a Drum – free guide
• Explore: The Beat of Your Own Drum – my new book on drumming for women’s transformation
• Connect: Follow me @sophie_messager for regular drumming insights and practices

The drum is waiting. Your body remembers. It’s time to reclaim your power.

My new book The Beat Of Your Own Drum, the history, science and contemporary use of drumming as a path for women’s wisdom, health, and transformation, is now available from Womancraft publishing.

 I want to share with you why I wrote this book.

The beginning

My journey with the drum is deeply rooted in my doula journey. I was first introduced to shamanic drumming at a doula retreat in 2013. I was utterly sceptical about drumming, convinced that it wouldn’t work (I even thought it was bullshit), until I experienced a shamanic drum journey during the retreat. I had such vivid visions, and loved how the drum made me feel so much, that I instantly wanted one of my own. My mother gifted me an Irish Bodhran, and the rest is history. As I write this, I own close to 30 drums, and I have been running drum circles for 5 years, I have drummed during births and written an article about drumming and birth in a scientific journal, drummed at 2 midwifery conferences, delivered talks at drumming conventions, and of course I’ve written this book.

There is so much to share, and I cannot fit it all in one article, so I’ll be writing more in the runner up to the pre launch and over the summer until the book becomes physically available in September. I’m going to share a brief version of my story and also some of the wonderful effects that drumming provides for women going through transformation (such as, but not limited to), birth.

After I got my first drum, the most challenging aspect was overcoming impostor syndrome, something I see in almost all of the women who start their work with the drum. We live in such a patriarchal society, where we are unconsciously made to believe that there is a “right” way to do something, and that we cannot do it unless we have been formally trained in it. This leads to not feeling good enough and not daring to drum. Add to this the systemic historical suppression of women’s expression (including drumming) and voices, it’s not surprising that drumming does not feel safe for a lot of women.

Looking back I’m really glad I experienced this because it gives me a lot of empathy and understanding for the women who come to me to grow their drumming skills, and who experience the same. 12 years down the line, drumming feels as natural to me as breathing. You can read part of that story in more detail (up to 2020) in my article called Drum healing, bullshit?

It all started with birth

Drumming became a part of the work I did with women as a doula, first during postpartum closing the bones massage rituals , then during pregnancy rituals and healings, and finally during births. I started yearning to drum for women during labour and births, eventually doing so in 2019, and then getting hired specifically for this purpose. It came completely from within, as I could not find anything written about it at the time.

 When I decided to start writing this book, in the summer of 2022, I first intended it to be about drumming and birth exclusively, and planned to submit the proposal to the same publisher as my first book, Why Postnatal Recovery Matters. I am very grateful to my friend Bridget Supple, who not only suggested I broaden the topic of the book, but also suggested that I attend a zoom meeting for prospective authors hosted by Lucy Pearce of Womancraft Publishing. Not only did I absolutely loved Womancraft’s ethos, but I felt a deep resonance for Lucy’s approach. I wrote 4 chapters in a month to meet the proposal deadline, and both this and Lucy’s feedback confirmed that the book needed to be much broader than just birth.

Since I left doula work, I’ve started to see in a crystal clear way how the coercive behaviour we see in maternity care is just the reflection of a deeper, society wide issue. 

Here’s an excerpt from the introduction chapter of the book.

“Since stepping away from doula work a couple of years ago, I’ve come to the stark realisation that not only is the current maternity care system beyond repair, but that the thread of disempowerment weaves through every stage of a woman’s life. Its pervasive narrative that begins in infancy, winds its way through our experiences of parenting, education and careers. This insidious message – that we are somehow ignorant of our own needs and should defer to those who ‘know better’ – isn’t confined to any one sphere. It permeates politics, the medical and education world and is woven into the very fabric

of our society. From the moment we’re born, we’re subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) taught to doubt our own instincts, to question our inner wisdom. It’s as if society has conspired to whisper in our ears, “You don’t know what’s best for you.” This message echoes in the halls of schools, reverberates in workplaces and finds its way into the most intimate moments of our lives.

The result? A deep-seated, often unconscious belief that our own knowledge – especially when it comes to our bodies, our choices, our lives – is somehow inferior to the ‘experts’. This belief chips away at our autonomy, erodes our confidence in our own experiences and intuition. And it’s a belief that I’ve come to recognise as not just false, but deeply harmful to the wellbeing and empowerment of women everywhere.”

The  heart of why the book’s message is: the drum provides us with a path back to our innate ways of knowing. 

“Drumming, because of its ability to modify our state of consciousness, can help us get out of a rational, masculine-centric way of thinking and re-learn how to access a more intuitive, more feminine way of knowing. Drumming can provide an antidote, not only to the ever-increasing speed and business of our world, but also to the systematic destruction of women’s power and autonomy.

What we need most at this moment in time, to heal ourselves and to heal the earth, is to support women to stand in their true power. The power that resides within us, in our ability to trust ourselves and know what’s right for us, rather than abdicating knowledge and power over to the system. What we need is to support a feminine way of accessing knowledge… Drumming offers a way back in through the layers of parenting, education and societal conditioning that have eroded our self-knowing. Reclaiming this knowing is critically needed in a culture that conditions women from childhood to seek truth outside rather than within.

“As we drum, we don’t just think differently – we experience the world differently. This altered state of being opens doorways to new perspectives, allowing us to imagine and embody alternatives to the limiting narratives that have been unconsciously programmed into us. In essence, drumming doesn’t just challenge the system – it transports us beyond it, offering an experience of what true autonomy and connection feel like.” Sophie Messager

Here are the chapters of the book

Foreword

Introduction: The First Beat 

1 – Rhythms of Awakening: My journey with the drum 

2 – Echoes Through Time: A short history of women and drumming 

3 – Vibrations of Wellbeing: The science of drumming and physical health

4 – Percussion and the Psyche: Drumming’s resonance in brain, nerves and healing

5 – Diverse Frequencies: How drumming supports people who are neurodivergent

6 – Beating the ‘Shroom: Drumming as an alternative to psychedelics

7 – Sacred Circles: Drumming, rituals and ceremonies

8 – The Rhythm of New Life: Drumming to support the birth journey

9 – Tuning into Your Instrument: Finding a drum

10 – Rhythmic Practices: Ways to work with the drum and drumming

Conclusion: Echoes into the Future

Appendix

I had the drum below made to carry the energy of the book, and women back to the drum.

You can order the book here.

I’d love to hear from you: What resonates with you about this message? Have you ever felt that disconnect from your own inner knowing? Or perhaps you’ve found your own path back to trusting yourself – whether through drumming or something else entirely?

Write a comment below and share your thoughts with me. Your stories and reflections help shape this work, and I read every response personally.